In explaining why she had taken the topic ‘Metaphor’ as the topic for the gathering, our president for the day said, “When I was young I was chatting with my devout Church of England mother about Christianity. ‘Well,’ my mother replied, ‘it's all metaphor, isn't it.’ There was no question mark at the end of her sentence. This was a clear statement. We were fairly open with each other about our respective religious beliefs, but for some reason we never followed up this snippet of conversation. As the years have gone by I have often wondered about what she said, especially as now I seriously agree with her.”
The candle in our chalice was lit with these words, by Adyashanti : "There’s only one guarantee that Jesus gave: if you can receive and awaken and embody what he is speaking about, then your life will never be the same again. Then you will realize that you’re already living in the Kin-dom of Heaven."
And then we were given a clear sense of what this fellowship in Ringwood is all about, using some words adapted from Stephen Lingwood :
"This is our delight: We are in search.
We are in search of a coherent, whole set of stories, symbols, languages, and practices; that, taken together, offer a way of life. A way of life that diagnoses a problem in the human condition and offers a solution.
In other words, we are in search of something that gives coherence and meaning to human life. We are in search of faith, a faith that could be experienced as good news. We are trying to speak of paradise."
As this was a Zoom gathering, the hymns were able to be taken from a range of engaging video clips available publicly on YouTube. Here are the links:
Lead Me, Guide Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLpB-dE2DHM
Words and music by Doris M. Akers
Performed by Dr. Velma Willis and the Gospel Pioneer Reunion
Stand By Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v24qf16zP58
Words and music by Rev. Charles A. Tindley
Performed by Wyeth Duncan
There’s a spirit of love in this place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN7SEpcpkgg
Words and music by Mark A. Miller
Performed by Pine United Methodist Church, San Francisco CA
How like a Gentle Spirit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_0UGz1Ts-w
Words (1987) by C. Eric Lincoln
Music (1941) by Alfred Morton Smith
Performed by Rev. Bill Bloom
We’ll understand it better by and by
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzLJXETn0A
Words and music by Rev. Charles A. Tindley
Performed by Phillip Carter
There was also a poem made freely available online by the author:
Roger Robinson — Portable Paradise, read by the author.
https://poetryarchive.org/poem/a-portable-paradise/
The readings were firstly from the Bible, book of Mark chapter 7 verses 26-30 (in the translation version by Andy Gaus), and secondly, from the book by Howard Thurman Jesus and the Disinherited.
The readings both dealt with the incident, in the narrative about Jesus, in which Jesus is approached by a woman with different ancestral origins — from the region we would now name Syria. Jesus initially declines to help her poorly child, but after an exchange with the woman, changes his mind.
Thurman points out that this incident is an occasion for a one-to-one encounter between Jesus and someone who has been racialised, in Jesus’ mind, as different from himself. Potentially a test of Jesus' universal love-ethic which Thurman suggests, was, "A twofold demand upon him at all times: to love those of the household of Israel who became his enemies because they regarded him as a careless perverter of the truths of God; and to love those beyond the household of Israel — the Samaritan, the Gentile, and even the Roman oppressor…….
A person must love their neighbour directly, clearly, permitting no barriers between."
~~~~
Our president for the day reflected on these readings by firstly looking at the language in play and secondly generally agreeing with Howard Thurman, that Jesus was — as we would say these days — on a learning journey of his own.
The first point reflected upon was that the Syrophoenician woman cleverly uses language to shift Jesus’ point of view. The woman plays on the difference between the feral street dogs who are really part of the town’s waste disposal system, and pet dogs that live closely with families.
“When Jesus first replies to the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:27), he is repeating what he said elsewhere (Matthew 7:6): “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them underfoot”. Jesus is initially rejecting her plea on grounds that she and he have different origins, different cultures, different ways of looking at things.
“Where he starts from, is that he doesn’t want to give the deepest teaching to those who are undeserving — either because he thinks they won’t recognize it and will throw it away, or because he thinks they aren’t ready for it. And in any case, he is entirely taken up with helping his own people.
“The woman’s reply is clever because, whilst holding onto the dog metaphor, she pivots it, to challenge him to look at things in a new way. I have followed where others have been before, in reading that there is linguistic evidence of this. At this exact point in the New Testament Greek there is used a linguistic diminutive.
“Two words are used for dogs: Jesus uses one word, the usual, hard-nosed word, used for the feral scavenger dogs. And the woman uses another, softer word, with a subtler meaning.
"If the translator closely attends to this linguistic twist, and changes the emphasis to suit, the passage can be read:
“(Mark 7:27-28)
He said to her, “First let the children eat their fill, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it out to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the lapdogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
“I think that what the woman is saying, is, “If you are going to categorise me and mine as different from you and yours, at least accept that our relationship can be more than you have declared. We are neighbours. Accepting we are different, we can still live closely together, like dog owners and their pets. And in the same way, what is good for you is also good for us. Just give us a little of it, won’t you?”
"I think Jesus is jolted by this appeal to reason, solidarity, and the love-ethic. And so he acts to heal the child.”
And the reflection re-emphasised Thurman’s assertion that Jesus would need techniques he could use in extending his love-ethic across racialised divides. Our president for the day repeated Thurman’s message: “The first step toward love is a common sharing of a sense of mutual worth and value. This cannot be discovered in a vacuum or in a series of artificial or hypothetical relationships. It has to be in a real situation, natural, free. …. What one discovers in even a single experience in which barriers have been removed may become useful in building an overall technique for loving one’s enemy.”
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